It was those companies 'reputations that were most lastingly damaged by the explosion of BP's oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico, the recall of Toyota vehicles over concerns about sticky accelerator pedals and the revelations about Mr. Hurd's relationship with a contractor.

I asked Dajani, what ultimately is her hope for We Love Reading as it becomes more popular and contributes more lastingly to children as they grow up to become the next generation of teachers, business leaders and political leaders in Arabic countries?

These polemics, which elevated abstract expressionism to a patriotic cause — and remind us that the United States has always been modernist in its politics, if never lastingly in culture — were written in what Hughes called an "American gigantism of style," and expressed, on their own, a gigantism of appetite more arriviste than imperial.